Let’s raise a toast on this beautiful day,

for all the goodness we shared along the way.

All made possible, I’m happy to say,

by mothers who toiled day after day,

to care for their children without sick pay.

They always did what they had to do,

no matter how tired and stressed they were.

Each day they worked like busy bees,

cleaning and cooking and everything in between,

for the young ones always had to be fed.

Teachers and nurses mothers also had to be.

Nothing ever got in the way of spooning out TLC

and provide hope for what lay ahead

before she read and tucked them in bed.

I’m old and gray, and shrivelled like a prune.

My hearing is gone and I’m no longer in tune.

My joints are rusted and need lubrication,

but can’t get quick enough to the service station.

My colon has become a polyp factory,

and every year there’s the dreaded colonoscopy.

My prostate is enlarged and plays havoc with me;

I can’t even turn a tap without the urge to pee.

The glass of wine I enjoyed with my meals

was taken away by the medic on wheels.

Indigestion and heartburn come regularly,

in the middle of the night, especially.

I gave up my health, it seems to me,

to retire in comfort, with good company.

But who needs wealth at eighty-three,

when I can’t even stand straight to pee!

Exponential growth is what I see

by the time a baby turns three!

Thankfully, it doesn’t continue

’till he’s one hundred and three,

but stops completely

before he’s twenty three.

*

Like the baby, and the other apes,

we should’ve stopped growing long ago.

We were only millions a few centuries ago,

when Enlightenment blossomed

and we became of age on the world stage.

That’s when all hell broke loose

and we became Earth’s noose.

She who had it all was sad

and searched high and low

without finding happiness.

No one could tell her how

or where to find it.

For many years

she suffered hardships

wandering far and near,

but the answer

was always there,

never here.

*

Only after she stopped

wandering and living without fear

did the answer become clear:

happiness is a state of mind;

it’s freedom from desire.

They celebrated her wisdom

and called her the Lotus Queen.

*

Every spring

she comes to life

in the purest of white

to still the mind

and rid it of desire.

The human race

has fallen from grace.

Driven by greed

we live beyond need.

*

We’re all subservient

to the One in the sky

and self-proclaimed appointees

who won’t share the pie.

*

Arrogance and deception

abound in stratified society.

No one pays heed

to those in need.

No one gives a hoot

for the common boot.

*

No matter how wealthy,

everyone feels poorer than he

who flies high above the sky

to experience zero gravity,

at great expense to society.

*

There’s a ladder we climb

because higher we want to go

consuming mindlessly to stay in toe,

for downward nobody wants to go.

*

We hurt each other and humanity

when we stratify society.

The pyramids of Egypt are still there

but those who built them are nowhere!

This is the only world I know

and deep down it troubles me so.

The feeling isn’t right. I see the blight.

We’re no longer in tune with the light.

*

Mother nature wasn’t always kind.

Tempests, storms, volcanoes erupting

made early life so disrupting.

Though our fight for survival made us strong

our coping mechanisms were slow

to pose a threat to the planet we know.

*

With technology though,

Greedy Titans told

mother nature where to go.

Having conquered Earth

they also want Space,

forgetting the human race.

*

All these dreams of escaping gravity

are signs of hubris far and near.

After poisoning our biosphere

the Titans live in fear

and set their sights on planet B.

*

Technology was not the tool

for taming mother nature,

but for satiating the Titan’s greed.

Sadly, we followed their lead.

*

Thanks to the industrial revolution,

in just a few centuries,

we’ve gone from millions to billions

of mouths to feed, destroying everything

like swarms of locusts in the spring.

*

We’re kind creatures, I’d like to think,

but collectively, we destroy everything!

Individual greed is a human flaw;

collective greed is the last straw!

*

If collective greed is destroying our only home

there’s still hope for saving humanity.

The name of that light flickering beyond the sea

is collective action and humility.

Mama, grown old and gray

cries almost every day.

Nothing she can do or say

her children now hold sway.

It is they who suffer now

there’s no more earth to plow,

no more seeds to sow,

and no more food to grow.

Mama burns on her funeral pyre;

her children face eternal fire.

Save them from perdition:

stop adding fuel to the fire!

The toll is evident now.

They need to survive, but how?

Will they beg divine intervention

or reform their harmful intentions?

Growing up,

technology was a goddess,

so much loved and praised

for all the things she could do.

She washed and dried our clothes

and did the dishes too!

She kept our food from spoiling

and cleaned the carpets anew.

She awed us with electricity.

Every day we expected something new.

But a goddess she ceased to be

when she turned to digital sorcery.

We woke up one day, gasping in despair.

Facilitating hate mail, fraud,

disinformation and fear,

a scourge she became everywhere.

In her goddess days,

she freed us from drudgery.

In her witching ways,

she enslaves us with grudgery.

Betraying our trust,

a digital dopamine curse

she unleashed upon the pure.

Awe has turned to fear!

How tiny they used to be,

back then in their nursery.

Then time just flew.

They had things to do,

And I had work to attend to.

When they went away,

the house felt cold and grey.

The years passed, as they always do,

and now they have happy homes too.

When they visit, occasionally,

we talk, laugh and bicker too.

One such day, I saw in them,

reflections of someone I knew.

That day, I felt love and pain

simultaneously,

for as different as they are,

in each of them lay

the spectre of the loved one

who preceded me.